Healthy diet for woman can ensure good brain health for grandchildren, genetic model: Study
New Delhi (PTI): Mothers who eat apples and herbs during their early pregnancy could be protecting the brain health of their children and grandchildren, a Monash University study using genetic models has found.
The discovery is part of a project that found a mother's diet can affect not just her child's brain but also those of her grandchildren.
Published in Nature Cell Biology, the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute study found that certain foods could help prevent the deterioration of brain function.
This study used roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans) as the genetic model because many of their genes are also found in humans, allowing insights into human cells.
The researchers found that a certain molecule present in apples and herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage helped in reducing the breakdown of communication cables needed for the brain to work properly.
Senior professor Roger Pocock, with his team, investigated nerve cells in the brain that connect with each other through about 8,50,000 kilometres of cables called axons. For axons to function and survive, essential materials need to be transported along an internal structure that contains microtubules.
Pocock explained that a malfunction that caused the axons to become fragile can lead to brain dysfunction and neurodegeneration.
He said his team used a genetic model with fragile axons that break as animals age. "We tried to find whether natural products found in the diet can stabilise these axons and prevent breakage," he explained.
"We identified a molecule found in apples and herbs that reduces axon fragility -- ursolic acid. How? We found that ursolic acid causes a gene to turn on that makes a specific type of fat. This particular fat also prevented axon fragility as animals age by improving axon transport and therefore its overall health."
Pocock said this type of fat, known as a sphingolipid, had to travel from the mother's intestine, where food is digested, to eggs in the uterus for it to protect axons in the next generation. He said while the results were promising, they still need to be confirmed in humans.
"This is the first time that a lipid/fat has been shown to be inherited," he said. "Further, feeding the mother the sphingolipid protects the axons of two subsequent generations. This means a mother's diet can affect not just their offspring's brain but potentially subsequent generations. Our work supports a healthy diet during pregnancy for optimal brain development and health," Pocock said.
Read the full paper published in Nature Cell Biology, titled 'An Intestinal Sphingolipid Confers Intergenerational Neuroprotection'.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
iPhone lands in temple hundial, everything in offering box goes into god’s account: TN Minister
Chennai, Dec 21: A devotee who has accidently dropped his iPhone into the hundial of a temple here is in a peculiar situation. He wants it back, but the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department politely declined his request, saying it has now become temple property.
Immediately after realising his mistake, the devotee later identified as Dinesh, approached the officials of the Sri Kandaswamy temple, Thiruporur, and pleaded that his iPhone which inadvertently fell into the offering box when he was making a donation be returned to him.
On Friday, after opening the offering box, the temple administration contacted him saying the gadget was found in the hundial and he was free to retrieve only the data from it. However, Dinesh refused to accept and insisted that his phone be returned to him.
When this issue was taken to the notice of the HR & CE Minister P K Sekar Babu on Saturday he replied “anything that is deposited into the offering box, even if it be an arbitrary action, goes into god’s account.”
“As per the practises and tradition at the temples, any offerings made into the hundial directly goes into the account of the deity of that temple. Rules do not permit the administration to return the offerings back to the devotees,” Babu told reporters here.
He would discuss with the department officials to see if there was any possibility to compensate the devotee and accordingly make a decision, the Minister said after inspecting the construction of the Arulmigu Mariamman temple in Madhavaram, here, and the renovation of temple tank belonging to the Arulmigu Kailasanathar temple in Venugopal Nagar, here at an estimated cost of Rs 2.5 crore.
This incident is not the first such one in the state. According to a senior HR & CE official a devotee S Sangeetha from Alappuzha in Kerala unwittingly dropped her 1.75 sovereign gold chain into the hundial of the renowned Sri Dhandayuthapani Swamy temple in Palani in May 2023.
The gold chain fell into the hundial when she removed the Tulasi garland around her neck to make an offering. However, considering her financial background and after confirming through CCTV footages that the chain had fallen by accident, the chairman of the temple board of trustees bought a new gold chain of same value at his personal expense and gave it to her.
The official explained that as per the Installation, Safeguarding and Accounting of Hundial Rules, 1975, none of the offerings made into the hundials can be returned to the owner at any point, as they belonged to the temple.
